


Living up to the name.

by skyfallat221b



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Archery, Barton Family, Future Fic, post AOU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 21:43:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4154061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyfallat221b/pseuds/skyfallat221b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathaniel Pietro Barton has just turned 32 years old. His parents are dead of old age, and SHIELD has found new operatives. Cooper Barton's a teacher, Lila's a ballerina, but it's only Nathaniel who took up and practiced his dad's archery every now and then.<br/>However, now SHIELD needs someone to mimic his father. And Nathaniel isn't sure if he's the man for the job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living up to the name.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribaversutus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribaversutus/gifts).



> Alright, so this actually stems from this ask I got on tumblr by clevervulpus (scribaversutus here on AO3): "Future storyline where Nathaniel Pietro Barton is all grown up and Mom and Dad passed away a while ago but now SHIELD needs him because he's the only one of the three kids who picked up Dad's archery and he becomes the new Hawkeye with Kate's mentorship and falls in love with Natasha's adopted daughter and has so many adventures and faces so many challenges and UGH I need this."
> 
> I fulfilled the not so official prompt (except the last part), and it got a bit longer. So I hope you enjoy this!

The moment Nathaniel steps through the front doors of the newest SHIELD offices, he feels like his heart is going to stop. This is what his dad used to do - those are people his dad used to work for. Of course, he’s heard all about them through the years (even though he isn’t supposed to know about them). He knows that the lady walking in front of him is Maria Hill, she took over when Uncle Nick died, and next to him, he knows it’s Kate Bishop because she came to visit a couple of times when dad was getting real old.

Kate used to use his dad’s bow when she was out avenging - when he passed he left it to her in his will. Nathaniel has his own, one that his dad had made for him for his 21st birthday. He isn’t as good as his dad, but he is pretty good. Cooper and Lila grew up to become your regular American person, Cooper an art teacher and Lila is a ballet dancer with the American Ballet Theatre. (She always thought that Aunt Natasha was the best).

Nath... Well, he’s 32, and he’s been working in Yellowstone as a Wildlife Ranger. He likes it, allows him to keep close with nature, you know? His dad taught him all there was to know about animal behavior, about how the wolves can shape the landscape and ecosystems. He doesn’t know why SHIELD wants him, but he has his suspicions. 

They walk up to a metal detector, and he has to take off his jacket, his watch and his sunglasses (mom’s, actually), to let them check them. He passes through it without a problem, and realizes he has no clue what is going on. Nobody has said anything except that they need him to consult. They turn right into what he supposes is a briefing room, and he finds several files in neat CLASSIFIED folders laid out in front of different chairs. Kate, Maria and himself sit down, before he sees Wanda through one of the glass windows. He almost leaps up, but Maria catches him.

“She’s not part of this mission, Nathaniel.” Her voice is cold. She’s the same age as Fury was when he first founded the Avengers. Stark’s dead too, Nathaniel knows, but his kid with Pepper is off holding up the Stark empire. (Three generations of Starks looking after the world seems like a good inheritance, he muses).

“So, anyone want to tell me what this is about?” he asks, as he opens the file. He’s impressed they still have paper files, but that’s when he realizes they aren’t blacked out. Paper isn’t hackable. How silly of him. He remembers how his dad and Wanda would talk about Ultron and the damage he did to computers. (Nathaniel doesn’t trust technology too much either. He works with his hands in the soil and with wildlife. Yellowstone National Park got a larger protected area while he was ranger there, and now there are so many animals there that he feels like a member of each pack, to be honest.)

Kate opens the files too, and speaks, cautiously. She’s just turned 50 years old, three months before. (Steve had showed up at the party, and he hadn’t aged a day. Neither had Bucky, but nobody commented on it). “We need you to get out on the field,” she starts and Nathaniel immediately shakes his head, but she goes on, “We need your... uh- we need you to scare someone from your father's past.”

He isn't sure he understands at first, but then it dawns on him. Of the three kids, he is the one who looks more like his dad now that he's all grown up. “You want me to pretend to be my dad?” he asks, incredulous and Maria nods.

“Just for show. A tac team will take care of the target,” she replies, but he shakes his head.

“Who the hell would you need me to intimidate? Or who the hell would my dad need to intimidate?” he deadpans, almost frustrated.

“Marcella Carson,” is the reply he gets and it takes him a good ten seconds to compute the name.

“Wait, Carson like-”

“Yes, like the guy your dad worked for in the circus when he was a kid,” Kate interrupts, and she sighs. “She's been getting bad guys together, and her carnival's merged with the Circus of Crime – she got married to Tiboldt's son, and they got a kid that's about your age – and we need you to distract the lot while we take them down.”

Nathaniel can't believe it. They want him to do what now? He's never shot a real person before. Game, sure many times. He's shot moose, caribou, even taken down one of the older grizzly bears to ease up on the population three winters ago when it was getting scarce but? This? His dad always told him to never aim at someone unless you meant to loosen the arrow. “No.”

His answer doesn't seem to impress them, so they simply shrug him off. “We've arranged for monetary compensation in the form of support of your Ranging group for the next 15 years. I think that should be plenty of reason to take up your dad's mantel.”

Wha- 15 years? He has to calculate how much money that is and- holy shit. “You want me to take up his costume and scare them off? And you'll pay that much money to us?” he asks, and they both nod.

“James saw to the funding himself.” Ah, right, because the Stark kid was such a charmer. Tony Stark's son was as much as a philanthropist as his dad, but Nathaniel didn't like him. (It was in their genes, he supposed.)

“Let's do this, then,” he states and he isn't sure why he says yes to this almost suicide mission. He isn't a perfect archer – Kate was always better than him. Even Barney was better than him right up until Barney couldn't string the bow anymore. And his dad... Well. He was THE best archer he had ever known. Nathaniel could hit a target, sure, but it wasn't the perfect shots all the time. Sometimes he missed the target altogether.

* * *

“ _Hawkeye, you in position?”_

Hill's voice in his ear feels strange, and he doesn't like it. He fit right into his dad's old Avengers costume – the one sleeved one, he'd chosen that one on purpose – and he felt like there was too much pressure on him.

“Roger,” he replies. He's got no idea what military jargon to use. And, he doesn't like her calling him Hawkeye. That was his dad. And Kate. Not him. He's just Nathaniel.

* * *

“Pauline Carson-Tiboldt,” Nathaniel calls. He's using that tiny little midwestern accent he knew his dad sometimes had when he spoke really loud (or got really angry), in the hopes that it would lure out the carnie.

* * *

“My, my, my, look what the cat dragged in!”

Nathaniel does not like the way she purs at him. At all.

* * *

“ _Shit, Marcella's coming your way.”_

Kate's voice almost startles him. He can feel his arms getting tired. He's knocked his arrow on his dad's bow and has been aiming at Pauline for a solid five minutes. There's no way he can keep the bow stringed that much longer.

And there's no way he can ask SHIELD to move their goddamn asses. (And, he sucks at acting. He's pretty sure they've noticed by now that he's not his dad. His dad had this uncanny ability to snark back at every opportune moment, and Nathaniel had never managed that. Lila had inherited that trait, unfortunately).

* * *

“Well, I'm surprised to see you, Hawkeye,” Marcella states, and he can feel her eyes look at him as if she sees right through his mask and knows it isn't Clint standing in front of her. Nathaniel is breaking a sweat, and his arm muscles are beginning to burn.

He uses a bow and arrow to hunt. And to sometimes teach the kids. Or demonstrate as a ranger. Not as a sniper. Or a killer. He's so afraid that he's going to kill either of them by accident if his fingers give up.

“But, I have to say,” Marcella continues as her daughter smiles, “that you are a good impression of your father, but you will never manage to be him.”

* * *

He doesn't know what snaps inside his head.

* * *

“Did you know that your dad and I- well, we had some pretty goods times,” Marcella continues.

“Shut up,” he counters.

“ _Hawkeye, do not loosen the arrow.”_

“He was one of the bendiest guys I've ever met, and the things he could do!” Now the old lady in front of him just sounds creepy. And disgusting. Nathaniel wants nothing to do with her.

“ _I repeat, Hawkeye, do not loosen it.”_

He wants to growl at Hill to shut the fuck up but his fingers are shaking and he can feel the string slip a little bit against the finger tab. Damn it, why couldn't they have given him the compound?!

“Sad to hear he passed.”

* * *

“ _HAWKEYE!”_

But the yell in his ear is too late. The string slips against the leather of the finger tab, and before he knows it, the arrow has loosened. For a single second, time stands still and everything inside him yells to panic and to run. He isn't a secret agent. He just isn't.

He closes his eyes.

THUD.

“Oh my god, Hawkeye's kid can't even hit a target less than 20 feet away. What a shame!”

Opening the eyes again he notices that the arrow has flown right past the two of them, but before either of them can do anything, he sees a swarm of SHIELD agents appear from the circus tent, and he keels forward and everything he's eaten that day comes right back up.

* * *

“What the hell, Nathaniel?”

Hill's disappointment stings less than the fact that Marcella had hit the nail right where it hurt the most. He's the son of the greatest marksman in the world and he wasn't even able to keep his bow stringed until SHIELD was ready.

“I'm sorry, Maria, I'm not my dad!” he snaps back as he pulls off the arm guards and unzips the vest. He doesn't care if she's looking at him or not, he's not intimidated by a 70+ year old woman.

“You loosened! What did you do that for? You could have killed either of them!” Maria keeps saying, and everytime she repeats it he feels more and more like a failure. Not only that, but if he had actually loosened and HIT one of them, it would at least have felt like a success. But he'd hit the fucking tent. Behind.

Goddammit. Kate's strangely silent at the table, and he knows that she knows why. His muscles had just given up, not his mind.

“But I didn't, did I?!” he yells back, as he rips the vest off, revealing a tight thermal shirt underneath. “I didn't because I'm not my fucking dad, Maria!” he snaps again, and Hill slams her hand on the file in front of her.

* * *

Kate finds him down in SHIELD's training center. He's got a recurve, a compound, a longbow and a crossbow out on the table, she notices, and his fingers are bleeding.

“Nathaniel-”

“Don't, Katie Kate. Just don't.”

He calls her that way because that's how his dad always called her. She's the only one (with Wanda) who allows it. To everybody else she is Katherine or Mrs. Bishop.

“Maria's sorry,” she goes on, as if uninterrupted. “I want to show you something.”

She pulls a holographic pad out from her bag and places it on the table. Nathaniel puts down the crossbow he's just shot with and comes up to stand next to her.

She taps several passwords in, and he notices she is accessing encrypted files. Level 8. Classified.

It doesn't take him a long time to realize that she is finding video logs from her father's training sessions. The first one shows him in – is that 1990? - and he's practicing in one of SHIELD's shooting yards.

She doesn't say anything as it plays.

He sees his dad hit the target. And again. And then he misses. Tries again. And misses again.

She interrupts the video feed, and fast forwards to 2002. He dad is covered in blood and he is shooting relentlessly at the wall of that shooting yard. Some of the arrows fly without him even aiming. And some of them fly completely past the target.

Kate interrupts the video, and fast forwards to 2012. He notices it's a security footage video she is pulling up now, and he recognizes Natasha. They're in the- is that the Helicarrier?

Nathaniel sees his dad knock an arrow and aim for Natasha. And miss. “What's going on-”

But Kate stops the video as Natasha and his dad start fighting each other. (Nathaniel sees that his dad's eyes are a weird color and he remembers something about Loki. His hand goes to his chest, where he's got birth marks that look like burn scars.)

(He remembers asking his mom about those birth marks and asking where they came from.)

(He knows.)

She fast forwards to 2023, and he knows that it's one of the last missions his dad was on. Clint is 52 at this point in time, and it's a security footage again. And he misses.

Kate looks up as she folds the device back together.

“Your dad had an incredible archery skill. And he never ever missed when it mattered most,” she smiles softly. “He could do the Robin hood shot.” But she knows that Nathaniel knows too.

“But he didn't miss every now and then. When he was emotionally compromised. Tired.” She shrugs and huffs. “I mean, his old shoulder injury started flaring up right before that last video.”

Nathaniel doesn't know why there aren't tears on his face. Maybe because he's too tired to cry. Or maybe because he cried so much on the ride back to SHIELD's base.

“He was the best archer in the world, but he missed too.” He can see that it pains her to say it. “Just never when anyone was looking.”

* * *

He takes the bow Kate has given him back home with him. He takes it to his house, near Yellowstone. Cooper's inherited the farm and Lila lives in New York, so he moved out and is living here now. On his own. (Well, there's this research partner that he really likes.)

(He knows his dad would have said go for it, kid.)

He hangs up the Hoyt Gamemaster II collapsible bow over the fireplace and watches it. He hasn't gotten much stuff from his dad. But Kate had decided it was time for him to have this.

*

“I miss you dad,” Nathaniel says, as he crouches in front of Clinton Francis Barton's grave stone, back in Waverly, Iowa.

 

**Author's Note:**

> (NB: Yes, James Stark is named after Ltnt. James Rhodes.)
> 
> So? How did you like it? LET ME KNOW!


End file.
